Dolls
by Crina
Summary: This day is almost exactly like the ones before, but tonight Narcissa is afraid. The Black girls.


_**1954**_

_Bellatrix is three_

Her little baby sister is lovely, eleven months old. Everyone adores her – except Bella, who wishes the bundle would just disappear.

She has made up her mind. She does not like this new sister. She'd rather have a new doll. Dolls don't cry or repeat _Bell-uh_ over and over again.

"But Andromeda likes you", Mother says sternly. "She is your sister. You will play together."

Bella collects her dolls around her. She likes them – she can dress them the way she wants and tell her secrets to them. They always let her decide.

Perhaps Andromeda could be her new doll.

_**1969**_

_Narcissa is fourteen_

Narcissa wants to be a lady. She wants to marry a handsome man, have beautiful boys, live in a dignified mansion. She wants to be treasured, graceful, witty and ...wanted like Bella and Andi are.

There is no doubt about it, everyone wants her older sisters. They are admired and loved, no party is complete without them. They are important.

Cissy feels, sometimes, that if either of her sisters did something truly inappropriate, maybe people would start to admire her, the forgotten sister, instead.

Then she would be important.

Narcissa doesn't rejoice when she sees Andi holding that Mudblood's hand.

_**1971**_

_Andromeda is eighteen_

Andi is alone in the house. Mother and Father and her sisters have gone to visit someone rich and powerful. Andi knows this is her chance to leave for ever.

She doesn't take anything valuable with her. It would be stealing.

She writes a note and puts it on Cissy's bed. Bella has become so dark, but Cissy is a soft child still.

Andi leaves the house she was born and raised in, leaves her riches and jewelleries, leaves her family and life. When she closes the door behind her it's hard not to hate Ted Tonks just a little.

_**1971**_

_Bellatrix is twenty_

Her world has been changing, cracking, falling apart. Every day Bella has lost one piece more of her sister. Every day has been blurrier than the one before. Rodolphus Lestrange is a likable man, but Bella hates his ring on her finger. It's supposed to be a promise, but it's more like a chain.

Things have changed, too much.

And now this.

Her Andromeda, her own little Andi doll, is gone. Has left them for filthy blood.

Shame.

She can hear it. The final voice, the final click. Just one moment and it's all gone.

Bellatrix doesn't love Andromeda anymore.

_**1981**_

_Narcissa is twenty-six_

It's raining and the wind howls in the corners of her husband's home. Narcissa sits alone in the dinner table. Her hands are cold. She listens to the voices coming from outside, hoping to hear Lucius' steps.

She doesn't.

Baby is asleep, finally. Draco doesn't like the sounds of the storm. But he is safe, sleeping in his room.

This day is almost exactly like the ones before, but tonight Narcissa is afraid. Something is going to happen – or is happening – right now. _And where is Lucius?_

She walks through the empty halls of Malfoy Manor.

Like a real lady.

_**1993**_

_Andromeda is forty_

One day, quite by accident, she meets Arthur Weasley's mother, another woman who has been burnt out of the Black family tree.

Cedrella Weasley – once a Black – is an old woman. Her hair is almost white and her face is wrinkly, but her eyes are bright and she stands straight. Cedrella might be a poor man's widow, but she is still proud, strong, distinguished.

She looks at Andromeda with genuine confusion. Even after all these years it's hard for her to understand that someone would leave their family for a –– Mudblood.

Andromeda tells her truthfully she doesn't regret at all.

_**1998**_

_Bellatrix__ is forty-seven_

Finally alive. They have been dead, buried, for so long and now they are free, free and alive. Flashing lights, people's cries, it's –

_life_.

Bellatrix enjoys. To be here, to have a chance to prove she is worth of Him again ––! All around her people fall, everything is so easy, natural. Beautiful.

It's a game. First falls the black-haired one, then goes brown, reddish, golden. Same cycle again, Bellatrix dances her way through the people. She is worthy and important, He will notice it. Oh how she laughs!

After brown comes red.

But...

Rodolphus has always been a good dancer.

_**1998**_

_Andromeda and Narcissa are forty-five and forty-three_

The three sisters are together again. The eldest lies on the ground, dead, the middle one holds her grandson too hard, the youngest is admired and graceful and doesn't know what will happen to her husband and son now.

Cissy wants to start crying, but Narcissa holds back. A Malfoy can't be weak, not in front of other people. She has to be calm, she has to think a way she can save Draco and Lucius.

Andromeda wants to scream. She has hated this war ever since it broke out for the first time when Dora was still a small child. It has taken too much from her: childhood's family, friends, Ted, Nymphadora. It's just not right.

(Teddy's eyes are grey.)

They won't miss this Bellatrix of hard eyes and lost sanity. But when it's night and they lie in their too big beds, they will miss their sister Bella.

* * *

**A/N:** I don't know if Cedrella and Septimus are really Arthur's parents, but I have always imagined they are. Oh, and each of these drabbles were 100 words, except the last one (150 words). I don't know why it feels so important to point that out. :)


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